I have a feeling the new TWoP will not really resemble original TWoP, prior to Bravo's ownership, which is when I liked it. And that's probably fine, because I agree with you all that it worked because it was the only thing of its kind at the time. And I was much more patient with long-form writing than I am now. The real appeal of the recap was the commentary--observations made by people who (ideally) had a deep knowledge of the show, who were also (ideally) pretty funny. Well, now you can just get that on Twitter, in real-time, so I wouldn't read a 15-page recap anymore.

And I stopped visiting the forums right around the time they got super huge, when moderation could really only do so much and in fact by that point, the odd attachment to certain rules versus others seemed to encourage only the participation of the wrong kinds of posters. At any rate, I felt like the overall quality of posts/posters went down, and just couldn't bring myself to keep up with things anymore.

So...my interest will depend on the people they bring on to write and run things. Example: if someone like Joe Reid were involved, I would probably be much more interested (unlikely). If it's just some random names from like Collider and IGN or something, then I will not care.

mayram wrote:Yeah, I don't find much value in discussing fandom within a show thread itself (watching fandom train wrecks from afar? Absolutely!)

I actually would mind a lot less if the transition between forum threads was smoother. As it stands, when there's a separate thread for fandom/social media/behind the scenes there are these awkward transitions where it's all "quote-snip-endquote, answering in fandom thread." Forum software should allow you to quickly link to other threads for easy conversation continuation. I'm just too lazy to back out of a thread and go hunting for some non-standardized thread title in order to follow up. And if there's a rule about any kind of discussion not being allowed in an episode thread, there should be a place for people to go. For instance, I like it when shows made from books have threads for discussion where you can acknowledge the existence of the source material without getting slapped with a ruler.

Like Carrie Ann, my interest will also depend greatly on who they're bringing in to run things and what those things are. The press release talks about bringing in "influencers," and I have no idea what they mean by this. One of the biggest draws for early TWoP addicts was the participation of showrunners/writers/industry insiders, but all of that centralized attention has been diversified into actual jobs and/or contract requirements that have marketing and legal layers sandwiched between fans and show people. It's all so formalized now, and all these interactions have a commercial taste. The days where Aaron Sorkin will have an internet shitfit and write a whole subplot about the assholes who post on TWoP are over. Now it's all tongue-in-cheek, self-referential, and wholly deliberate fanservice designed to appeal to the appropriate demo.

Ugh, the "upgraded" previouslyTV layout is horrendous. Every post is now in a quote bubble, which is very confusing to my eyes. Something about it is very off to me and as always, I have to wonder why alleged upgrades to technology almost always make things worse/less user-friendly.

I've been wondering that for many years. It feels like surprisingly few people have heard the saying If it ain't broke, don't fix it. More like If it ain't broke, break it and then only partially fix it.

Jebus. I decided to check back in at PTV and was utterly horrified by the new forums. They're terrible. Difficult to read, very poor performance, and all the fancy new control features provide almost zero benefit. The threads that describe how features are meant to be used are also full of things like, "We can't do x, but a workaround is..." Goodbye, PTV.

The real thing? The creators are busy with PTV nowdays, TWOP wasn't the same after they left. So to me it is the real thing. And while I barely looked at PTV until the TWOP shutdown, it fulfills all my pop culture needs. I don't really need to head back, unless PTV suffers a mass exodus. Why do you think that will happen? I mean, what's the value of the name?

In sort of hilarious news/speculation, I think one of the people Tribune Media is bringing in to relaunch TWoP is the ever-divisive Jacob. I am friends with him on FB (I think he did one of those "add everyone from your contact list" things when he first joined, and I'd emailed him once I think?), and he's been excited about some interviews he's been doing, and today posted that he starts a new job on the 15th with Zap2It launching a new Tribune Media brand, and some of his comments make me feel like it's TWoP. I think his Facebook is public, so you can see it here. Anyway, this all made me laugh kind of a lot.

I'm not shocked. TWoP was very much a product of its time. Can you imagine trying to market "Here's a recap of that show that aired five days ago" today? (Also, the market for semi-accurate "recaps" was much higher back then, since if you missed the show, you missed it.)